It’s been a long two years for people commuting between New York and Vermont, but things should get quite a bit easier today. The new $70 million bridge that spans Lake Champlain will open this afternoon, a month late of schedule.
There will be an opening ceremony today at 2:30pm, on the Crown Point side of the bridge.
The Lake Champlain Bridge was opened in 1929, and was the first long-span, continuous truss bridge for highway traffic in the country. In 2009, the bridge was closed and demolished after the appearance of several structural cracks.
The original rebuilding was set to take eight years to complete, but the project was accelerated after commuters protested the delays. Many people that live in one state and work in the other were detoured upwards of 100 miles through Whitehall, NY every day. In 2010, a 24 hour ferry service helped alleviate some of the traffic problems, but couldn’t accommodate for all 3,400 vehicles that crossed the old bridge daily.
The new bridge was expected to open in early October, but was delayed due to flooding from run off and heavy rain. Today, a month late, the bridge makes its grand opening and will return the flow of traffic between Vermont and New York.
Finally! I can’t imagine having to drive 100 miles out of my way to get to work. To all of you commuters who have been detouring, what will you spend your surplus of gas money on now that your bridge is back?
SO .. glad to see the bridge back. For many years when my children were small we would go to our camp in … Crown Point and .. always went to the Fort .. and over to Vt on the bridge 🙂 Such an amazing view .. Congrats that you all have it back …